The Lonely Australian of the Asian Night
A Short Story
by
Gregory Pakis
Crime fiction / Travel
Publixher: G & G Publishing
Publication Date: August 1, 2024
Page count: 19 pages
This post is part of a virtual book tour organized by Goddess Fish Promotions.
Please click on the tour banner to see the other stops on the tour.
SCROLL DOWN FOR GIVEAWAY!
SYNOPSIS:
Hookers and hawkers.
Mosques and mosquitos.
Paul has had enough of Southeast Asia.
He's only here ‘cos it's cheap.
He's on the run from police after leaving Australia.
No, that place wasn't much better either.
Well, it was when he was young.
When his life was full of promise. An up-and-coming boxer. And he had friends. And fun.
Then a bit of bad luck later and he found himself on the run in outback Australia. Paranoid. Hiding from shadows. The heat. The dust. The sweat.
Next stop, Southeast Asia.
CLICK TO PURCHASE!
BOOK TRAILER:
READ AN EXCERPT:
Cigarette in mouth, Paul stood on the hotel balcony and stared nervously out into the hot Cambodian night. He hated Asia. He didn’t know why so many loved it. Of course deep down he knew - cheap holidays. But to Paul, Asia was hell - hot, dangerous and always just a bit of bad luck away from some sort of disaster.
Not much could be seen from his balcony. His hotel was down a small street off the main road that led to the tourist centre of Siem Riep. He could see people drifting down the main road, mostly tourists clutching dollar beers. Directly across from him was the construction site of a new hotel.
Paul took another drag from his cigarette, grabbed his beer off the balcony railing and walked back into the hotel room. He looked at his boots next to his duffel bag. He was sick of those stinky boots. He looked at the grime on the duffel bag. That grime was from India. Indian grime was unique. Black. Oily. Nowhere else that he had been in Asia left that kind of grime. It came mostly off the train floors. As he stubbed his cigarette out in the ashtray, he remembered what his feet looked like in thongs at the end of those long train trips - black.
REVIEW:
4 stars!
A young drifter reflects on his past and anxiously awaits
his future.
The Lonely Australian of the Asian Night by Gregorg
Pakis is a compelling short story of a young drifter, quickly approaching
middle-age and who has been hiding out in his Siem Reap, Cambodia, hotel room
to hopefully to fly under the radar of the local authorities and INTERPOL.
Having fled his hometown of Melbourne, Australia, just ahead of the police, who
have an interest in him for mostly petty offenses, he traveled to India and
eventually other Asian cities seeking cheap living conditions and easy marks
for his penny ante thefts and robberies. With a lot of time on his hands, he
reflects on his past and while he clearly recalls his life as taking advantage
of opportunities to profit from others, he fails to dredge up any remorse for
taking the low road.
The author’s writing is compelling and easy reading; I was
absolutely drawn into Paul’s version of self-reflection. The descriptions of
the places he traveled, and his experiences were absorbing and evocative. I
would welcome a longer book with more of this character’s trainwreck of a life
story.
I recommend THE LONELY AUSTRALIAN OF THE ASIAN NIGHT to
readers of crime fiction, travel tales, and literary fiction.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR:
Gregory Pakis is an Australian author, film-maker, actor and wacky vlogger.
He has written the short story, The Lonely Australian of the Asian Night; the soon to be released horror-suspense novellas, The Regressor and He., and Memoir of a Suburban Hoe-Bo, which is partly an account of when he lived out of a van for ten years in Melbourne.
Gregory Pakis is also the writer / director of the feature films, The Garth Method (2005) and The Joe Manifesto (2013), which have won national and international awards and been distributed through Accent Entertainment, Label, Vanguard Cinema.
Gregory's more informal video projects are the feature documentaries, Garth Goes Hitch-Hiking (2007) and Garth Lives in a Van (2011) which have screened at film festivals in Australia.
More recently, he has created the comedy series, suBURPieS and his Wacky Vlog which can found on his socials.
Gregory has been featured in articles in newspapers, The Age, The Herald Sun, Beat Magazine, Inpress, FILMINK, and the Neos Kosmos. He has been interviewed on radio by the ABC, 3RRR, SYN FM, 3CR.
| Books Website | Films Website |
| Facebook | Instagram | TikTok | X (Twitter) |
AUTHOR CHAT VIDEO:
CLICK BELOW FOR AVAILABLE MEDIA KIT!
for
THE LONELY AUSTRALIAN OF THE ASIAN NIGHT
GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY! GIVEAWAY!
The author will be awarding a $25 Amazon/BN GC to a randomly drawn winner.
Thanks for the post and great review, Karen. Good to see the story being understood and appreciated. It's a gritty and confronting story about southeast Asia but shouldn't discourage people from visiting that fascinating part of the world.
ReplyDeleteThank you for reviewing this book today.
ReplyDelete